Inexplicably Missing

I recently read Norweigan Wood by Haruki Murakami. I was only a few pages in and I found myself feeling sad and getting a bit teary. And the feeling ran surprisingly deep. And the strange thing for me was, it wasn't exactly the words or the narrative that brought up this feeling. It was something about the way the words were put together, the landscape they painted. It felt somehow... so barren. It surprised me how effectively this mood was created, given that his books are translated in to English. Anyway, I am now hooked on Murakami, I read another of his books shortly after I finished Norweigan Wood, and I'm now on my third which is a pretty long and weird one. I feel as though reading his books I will crack open a special riddle eventually. His books carry many symbols that pass on and weave through each of his novels. Perhaps I have cracked one riddle. The other day something occurred to me. So far in my reading, there's a noticeable absence of children or mention ...